Generally described, electronic discussion forums, which enable users to exchange information by posting messages, include discussion boards, Web forums, online message boards, bulletin boards, instant message forums, and chat room forums. The advantages of exchanging information through electronic discussion forums are numerous. For example, users can form communities, such as shared common interests communities or topic specific communities, and exchange ideas and opinions over discussion boards dedicated to the communities.
Many discussion boards implement some type of filtering on posted messages in order to prevent undesirable or offensive content from being posted. One common approach may be a self-policing system via abusive message reporting. In an abusive message report system, once a message is posted or remains posted in a discussion board, any user who feels that the message is not appropriate in light of common sense or the policies of the discussion board can report the message as an abusive one to human administrators of the discussion board. Currently, discussion boards are not regulated by the authorities for preventing malicious, abusive, or damaging messages.
Most discussion boards have a small number of human administrators who are in charge of managing the discussion board. Typically, these human administrators investigate the report and determine whether the reported message is in fact offensive in nature or violates the terms and conditions of the discussion board. However, as more people communicate and share their opinions over the Internet, discussion boards keep getting more popular and tremendous numbers of messages are posted on a daily basis over discussion boards. Accordingly, the number of abusive message reports also continues to grow. This becomes a burden for the human administrators since abusive message reports should be handled in a timely manner in order to maintain a healthy environment within the discussion boards.